The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
28-06-2025
Africa is tearing in HALF: Scientists detect deep Earth pulses beneath Ethiopia - in ominous sign that the entire continent could rupture
The idea of an entire continent tearing in half sounds like a plot from the latest apocalyptic blockbuster - but scientists say that it could soon become a reality in Africa.
A massive crack is ripping through Earth's second-largest continent, from the north east to the south.
Eventually, the entire continent could split apart - leaving eastern Africa with its own coastline, separated from the rest of Africa.
In a new study, researchers uncovered evidence of rhythmic surges of molten rock rising from deep within the Earth's surface, beneath Ethiopia.
These pulses are gradually tearing the continent apart and forming a new ocean, according to researchers from Swansea University.
'The split will eventually go all the way down Africa,' lead author Dr Emma Watts told MailOnline.
'It has already begun and is happening now but at a slow rate – 5-16 mm per year – in the north of the rift.
'Regarding timescales, this process of Africa being torn apart will take several million years before it is completed.'
Scientists say a massive crack has started ripping through Africa, from the north east to the south, starting at the Afar region in Ethiopia. Pictured, active lava flows spilling out of the Erta Ale volcano in Afar, Ethiopia
Scientists at the University of Southampton uncovered evidence of rhythmic surges of molten mantle rock rising from deep within the Earth beneath Africa. These pulses are gradually tearing the continent apart and forming a new ocean
The split has already started at the northeast of Africa off the coast of Ethiopia, where the Red Sea flows into the Gulf of Aden. This image shows the hypothesized hot upwelling of mantle over the next few millions of years
Dr Watts and colleagues point to the Gulf of Aden, a relatively narrow body of water separating Africa in the south and Yemen in the north.
Like a small tear in a piece of clothing, the gradual separation event could start at the Gulf of Aden and gradually spread downwards.
As it does so, it would split through the middle of enormous bodies of water in East Africa, such as Lake Malawi and Lake Turkana.
By the time the split is complete, perhaps five to 10 million years from now, Africa will be made up of two landmasses.
There will be the larger landmass in the west featuring most of the 54 modern-day African countries, such as Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana and Nambia.
Meanwhile, the smaller landmass to the east will include Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and a large portion of Ethiopia.
'The smaller part that breaks away towards the east will be approximately 1 million square miles in area and the remaining larger landmass will be just over 10 million square miles,' Dr Watts told MailOnline.
For the study, the team collected more than 130 volcanic rock samples from across the Afar region.
The Gulf of Aden (pictured) is a relatively narrow body of water separating Africa in the south and Yemen in the north - and this is where the split has already begun
The Afar region is a rare place on Earth where three tectonic rifts meet - the Main Ethiopian Rift, the Red Sea Rift, and the Gulf of Aden Rift - together known as a triple junction. Pictured, fresh basaltic lava flows in the region of Afar, Ethiopia
This region is characterized by high volcanic activity. Pictured, a succession of volcanic deposits at Boset Volcano in the Main Ethiopian Rift
What's happening beneath the Gulf of Aden?
Deep below the Afar region in Ethiopia is a plume of molten mantle rock that pulses upward like a beating heart
These pulses carry distinct chemical signatures to the overlying tectonic plates above
The plates are moving apart from each other at different speeds - forming rifts of different widths
With this movement, the pulses flow out down each rift
Over millions of years, this movement continues and the tear at the Afar region goes southwards, forming a new ocean
In this region, three tectonic plates meet, called the Main Ethiopian Rift, the Red Sea Rift and the Gulf of Aden Rift, which are 'divergent', meaning they're moving away from each other.
The experts used these samples, plus existing data and advanced statistical modelling, to investigate the structure of the Earth's crust and the mantle below it.
The mantle, the planet's thickest layer, is predominantly a solid rock but behaves like a viscous fluid. The divergence (moving apart of the plates) aids the rising of the mantle.
'We found that the mantle beneath Afar is not uniform or stationary – it pulses,' said Dr Watts.
'These ascending pulses of partially molten mantle are channelled by the rifting plates above.'
Over millions of years, as tectonic plates are pulled apart at rift zones like Afar, they stretch and thin almost like soft plasticine, until they rupture, marking the birth of a new ocean.
Geologists have long suspected a hot upwelling of mantle, but until now, little was known about the structure of this upwelling, or how it behaves beneath rifting plates.
The team say the pulses appear to behave differently depending on the thickness of the plate, and how fast it’s pulling apart.
Earth is made up of three layers – the crust, the mantle and the core, which was later separated into 'inner' and 'outer'. A recent study suggested the existence of an 'innermost core' too
For the study, the team collected more than 130 volcanic rock samples from across the Afar region. Pictured, microscope image of a thin sliver of one of the volcanic rocks from Afar, Ethiopia
At the Afar region, the entire rift valley floor is covered with volcanic rocks, which suggests that, in this area, part of the Earth's crust has thinned almost to the point of complete break up.
When this happens, a new ocean will begin forming by the solidification of magma in the space created by the broken-up plates.
Eventually, over a period of tens of millions of years, seafloor spreading will progress along the entire length of the rift.
The study, published in Nature Geoscience, shows that the mantle plume beneath the Afar region is not static, but dynamic and responsive to the tectonic plate above it.
'We have found that the evolution of deep mantle upwellings is intimately tied to the motion of the plates above,' said co-author Dr Derek Keir, associate professor in earth science at the University of Southampton and the University of Florence.
'This has profound implications for how we interpret surface volcanism, earthquake activity, and the process of continental breakup.'
Tectonic plates are composed of Earth's crust and the uppermost portion of the mantle.
Below is the asthenosphere: the warm, viscous conveyor belt of rock on which tectonic plates ride.
The Earthhas fifteen tectonic plates (pictured) that together have moulded the shape of the landscape we see around us today
Earthquakes typically occur at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where one plate dips below another, thrusts another upward, or where plate edges scrape alongside each other.
Earthquakes rarely occur in the middle of plates, but they can happen when ancient faults or rifts far below the surface reactivate.
These areas are relatively weak compared to the surrounding plate, and can easily slip and cause an earthquake.
To help this search, the rover is equipped with multiple cameras, a drill to gather rock samples, and sets of tools to analyse the chemical compositions of samples.
However, despite a decade of searching, Curiosity has never found any evidence that Mars is or ever was home to any form of alien life.
But that hasn't stopped wild speculation following many of the rover's discoveries.
Following his discovery of this archived image, Mr Waring claims that the rocky structure is a mushroom that has 'clearly pushed up out of the Mars dirt.'
He adds: 'NASA should have poked it, bumped it, knocked it over, cut it open with their tools on Curiosity rover or at least use that million-dollar laser they burn rocks and dirt with.'
And Mr Waring isn't the only one who agrees. Commenters on social media flocked to share their support for his claims.
One wrote: Looks like a mushroom to me! NASA know far more about MARS than they let on.'
However, despite having a similar shape to some fungi, scientists say that there is a simple explanation for these images
(stock image)
Online, the images of Martian 'mushrooms' started a flurry of speculation as users claimed that it 'looks like a mushroom to me'
Scientists have found no evidence that life exists or ever has existed on Mars. But there is good evidence that the planet does contain water
While another boldly claimed: 'What people fail to realize is if life is found on just one other planet in the solar system, then that basically means there is life everywhere in the Universe mathematically.'
However, scientists are not convinced by this supposed evidence.
Dr Gareth Dorrian, a planetary physicist from the University of Birmingham, told MailOnline that this is simply a 'flat roughly disc-shaped rock sitting atop a smaller stone at the bottom.'
'My best guess would be they were not originally in that position, but like two rocks lying in the desert, one just below the surface and the other on the surface above it,' he explained.
'Over time the wind could gradually blow the sand and dust away and the top one would gradually settle onto the bottom one.'
Dr Dorrian points out that wind-driven processes like this on Earth often produce remarkable and strange formations.
As water flows through sediment, it dissolves the minerals and rearranges them in a more compact form to leave behind a solid block.
This is not the first time that scientists have found a 'mushroom on Mars'. However, these are just a type of geological feature called a concretion (pictured top right)
Since these are harder than the surrounding rock, they are often left standing above the surface.
Just like the hoodoo rock spires of the American southwest, these structures often take on a mushroom-like shape as the wind carves away the softer bedrock to leave a thin 'stem'.
Part of the reason that Curiosity didn't stop to take any more measurements, as Mr Waring suggests, is that these are common on the Martian surface.
Additionally, Dr Dorrian points out that, even if there were life on Mars, the chances of a living organism being found on the Martian surface are extremely low.
The atmospheric pressure at the Martian surface is roughly equivalent to that found 20 miles above the surface of Earth, meaning the atmosphere is very thin.
This allows a constant stream of ultraviolet and particle radiation in the form of cosmic rays to bombard the surface.
Dr Dorrian says: 'This unhealthy combination of radiation is well known to damage complex molecules like DNA and would quickly sterilise the surface where this image was taken.'
As if that wasn't bad enough, Dr Dorrian notes that temperature above ground would make it impossible for any organism to survive.
Concretions formed on Mars billions of years ago when water flowed through the sediment and left behind hard blocks of material that resisted being weathered by the wind
These same processes are responsible for the formation of the Hoodoo pillars in the American Southwest which also often have a mushroom-like shape
Temperatures swing from a comfortable 20°C (68°F) during the day to -100°C (-148°F) at night, well below the freezing point of water and far colder than anywhere on Earth.
'No known forms of life can simultaneously tolerate these extremes of temperatures, radiation levels, and low atmospheric pressure, including mushrooms,' says Dr Dorrian.
'If life does exist on Mars, it is more likely to be found below ground, such as in underground reserves of water, where it would be shielded from the harsh environment at the surface.'
That means this photograph almost certainly shows a common and naturally occurring rock formation, rather than life growing in an impossibly harsh environment.
The photograph so detailed it's impossible to see with the naked eye: Vera C Rubin Observatory releases the first images from its whopping 3,200 MEGAPIXEL camera
The photograph so detailed it's impossible to see with the naked eye: Vera C Rubin Observatory releases the first images from its whopping 3,200 MEGAPIXEL camera
One of its first stunning images shows the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae, vast clouds of colourful gas located some 9,000 light-years from Earth.
Combining 678 different pictures taken over seven hours, the photograph reveals blue and pink swirls of interplanetary gas and the glow of young stars being formed.
In another image, the massive telescope captures around 10 million galaxies - just 0.5 per cent of the 20 billion galaxies it will observe over its lifetime.
However, these are only the very first test images from the cutting-edge telescope, with thousands more soon to come.
Scientists have revealed the first images from the world's largest digital camera, the Vera C Rubin Observatory. This image shows the pink clouds of the Trifid Nebula (middle) and the smaller stellar nursery of the Lagoon Nebula (top right), located around 9,000 light-years from Earth
Located on top of the Cerro Pachón mountain in Chile, this revolutionary telescope is poised to supercharge our study of the universe
Perched 8,770ft (2,670m) above the Chilean Andes on a mountain dedicated to space research, the newly completed Vera C Rubin Telescope is in the perfect place to watch the stars.
The location is very high, exceptionally dark, and far enough above sea level to avoid much of the interference from Earth's atmosphere.
The observatory's four goals are to map changes in the sky, study the formation of the Milky Way, map the solar system, and understand dark matter.
As these test images offer a tantalising glimpse of what is to come, the observatory is soon to start a decade-long vigil watching the night sky.
With its unique, fast-moving design, astronomers will snap an image of the sky once every 40 seconds for eight to 12 hours every single night.
As part of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, the telescope will map the entire southern night sky once every three days for the next ten years.
At its peak, the observatory will be generating tens of thousands of images every night, which will be sent to scientists around the world.
The UK will also play a critical role in this project by hosting the data centres to process the enormous quantities of data.
This is a small section of a test photo taken by the Vera C Rubin Observatory of the Virgo cluster, the full image contains over 10,000 galaxies
Another small section of the same image shows spiral galaxies interacting in the heart of a dense galaxy cluster
The Vera C Rubin Observatory
Location: Cerro Pachón, Chile
Altitude: 8,768.9 feet (2,672.7m)
Primary mirror diameter: 27.5 feet (8.4m)
Camera resolution: 3,200 megapixels
The Vera C Rubin Observatory is a unique 'survey telescope' designed to photograph the entire night sky once every three days.
The telescope features the largest digital camera ever constructed and a specialised mount allowing it to move much faster than traditional telescopes.
This will enable the observatory to take a photo once every 40 seconds for eight to 12 hours per night.
By repeatedly taking images of the same sections of the sky, the Vera C Rubin Observatory will enable scientists to detect the smallest changes.
Dr Eduardo Bañados, from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, says the telescope will give astronomers a 'cosmic movie' of the next decade.
'This will allow us to go beyond just discovering such super-distant galaxies, but also learning about their physical properties,' says Dr Bañados.
The system will alert scientists anytime it detects that something has changed, with up to 10 million data alerts being generated every night.
These alerts might be tiny fluctuations in the light from a distant galaxy or the glint of sunlight on an asteroid approaching Earth.
Scientists believe that the telescope will increase the catalogue of objects in the solar system tenfold.
Speaking at a press conference revealing the test images, Aaron Roodman, Deputy Director for the observatory's construction, said: 'Since we take images of the night sky so quickly and so often, we'll detect millions of changing objects literally every night.
That means, if there is a ninth planet hiding somewhere in the solar system, the Vera C Rubin telescope will be able to find it.
The Vera C Rubin Observatory will map the entire southern night sky once every three days for the next decade, to create an unprecedented 'cosmic movie'
Light from distant galaxies is reflected from a 27.5-foot (8.4m) primary mirror, into an 11.2-foot (3.4m) secondary mirror, back into a 15.7-foot (4.8m) mirror, which bounces it into the waiting camera.
The setup is so sensitive that a single speck of dust or the light from a stray LED is enough to cause distortion.
However, overcoming those difficulties will give scientists an unprecedented window into the galactic past.
Mr Roodman says: 'We also will combine those images to be able to see incredibly dim galaxies and stars, including galaxies that are billions of light-years away.
'Rubin Observatory is truly a discovery machine. It will enable us to explore galaxies, stars in the Milky Way, objects in the solar system, and all in a truly new way.'
More photos from the Vera C Rubin Observatory will be released in a live-streamed event at 16:00 BST today.
Who was Vera C Rubin? The namesake of the world's largest digital camera
The Vera C Rubin Observatory is named after the American astronomer Vera Rubin, who was born in 1928.
Vera Rubin is famous for being the person whose work provided the first convincing evidence for the existence of 'dark matter'.
This is the hidden, unobservable extra mass which explains why the universe looks the way it does.
Prior to Rubin's discoveries, dark matter had been proposed but was not something that many astronomers took seriously.
Rubin studied more than 60 galaxies and found that the stars at the edges were moving just as fast as those at the centre.
According to the laws of physics that didn't make sense.
When Rubin and her colleague Kent Ford added up the mass of the galaxies, they found that their gravity shouldn't have been strong enough to hold them together.
That meant there needed to be some extra mass holding them together, and that mass must be dark matter.
Rubin was convinced that scientists would discover what dark matter was within a decade, but the mystery has proven far more elusive.
This means her discovery has launched an entirely new field of astrophysics, dedicated to studying the consequences of her incredible discovery.
Since it landed on the red planet in November 2018, NASA’s InSight mission has detected more than one thousand Marsquakes successfully. The lander has offered us unprecedentedinsight into Mars. InSight has spent more than four years on the Martian surface.
The mission has rewarded us with various symphonic sounds on Mars. NASA has captured – thanks to the spacecraft’s exquisitely sensitive seismometer – a series of “curious sounds” on Mars, as heard in some of the audio recordings that NASA recently published. The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument was built to pick up different vibrations that may appear subtly as a simple breeze on Mars.
Unprecedented insight
Raw Version of the image taken on Mars by InSight. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Some of the sounds captured by the InSight mission correspond to Marsquakes and wind gusts on Mars. The sounds have been modified and adjusted by scientists so that the human ear can hear them. InSight’s seismograph is capable of recording sound waves such as those produced by gusts of wind or even by the movements of the robotic arm of the probe and other mechanical tools.
Never before were scientists able to hear what’s going on on Mars. Numerous past rover missions have offered an unprecedented view of the Martian landscape. But up until InSight made its way to the surface of Mars, we weren’t really able to hear what Mars sounds like.
“It’s been exciting, especially in the beginning, hearing the first vibrations from the lander,” said Constantinos Charalambous, an InSight science team member at Imperial College London who works with the SP sensors. “You’re imagining what’s really happening on Mars as InSight sits on the open landscape.”
The SEIS instrument is in position on the Martian Surface. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Most of the data InSight was sent to gather is related to quakes. Unlike on Earth, Marsquakes are caused by cooling and contraction, which results in stress fractures on the Martian Crust. Since Mars has a cratered surface, quakes on the red planet can persist for about a minute. In comparison, quakes on Earth last for seconds at a time. During the day, InSight’s different parts are in movement. They also produce sounds.
In addition to that, the seismometer also picks up wind gusts. This means that to hunt for quakes, researchers listen for changes in the instruments during the night. In addition to hearing quakes and wind gusts on Mars, the InSight instruments have picked up a series of strange changes. A weird whistling noise can be heard from Mars’s surface in one of the recordings. Although scientists don’t know exactly what causes it, they believe the noise was produced due to interference with the seismometer’s electronics.
The InSight lander has also recorded its own unique sounds. Researchers at NASA refer to them as dinks and donks, and these peculiar sounds are caused due to the expansion and contraction of the various parts inside the seismometer. These changes within the instrument are most likely caused due to heat loss.
Eerie sounds on Mars
Check out some of the strangest noises picked up by InSight on Mars here below. Here’s the first quake on Mars recorded by the InSight lander (at the start of the recording; what you will hear is the wind on Mars):
This is the recording of another quake on Mars:
Here’s another noise picked up on Sol 235 on Mars:
Here are some of the sounds that the lander produces when it is working on the surface of Mars:
And in this recording below, you can hear the various “dinks and dongs” the lander produces:
Here is an extra recording. In the audio track below, you’ll hear sounds from InSight’s Pressure Sensor on Mars:
InSight, whose solar panels are covered in think layers of Martian sand is no longer operating on the surface of Marts. However, the plethora of scientific data it has gathered during its mission on Mars has helped us to redefine our knowledge of the red planet.
As scientists recently said, “the goal of the InSight mission was to rewrite the textbooks. We have done it, literally.” This is because the lander has provided scientists on Earth with unprecedented data that has helped us understand the red planet inside out. InSight exceeded its expected lifespan of two years, but dust buildup on its solar panels depleted the spacecraft’s energy, rendering it silent. Despite several attempts, NASA officially ended the InSight mission in December 2022.
Diagram of the APOSSUM mission. Credit - V. Hernandez Megia et al.
The coming of asteroid (99942) Apophis in April 2029 has sparked plenty of discussion both inside and outside the astronomical community. Despite original fears that it would pose a threat, Apophis will safely pass around 32,000 km away from Earth - though admittedly that is still closer than some geostationary communications satellites. That close approach offers a unique opportunity for those interested in asteroid science to take an up-close look at one of these relics of the early solar system, and various groups are planning to do just that. A new paper from Victor Hernandez Megia and his colleagues at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) suggests a new mission that could provide even further insight into the interior of Apophis - by returning part of it to Earth.
The APOphiS SUrfaces saMpler (APOSSUM) mission is designed with one primary goal in mind - get a sample of Apophis back to Earth for examination. However, that will not be easy. Doing so will require three-different stages of operations, each with their own requirements and potential pitfalls.
First will be the approach phase. APOSSUM is designed to hitch a ride on the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (RAMSES) - an ESA mission that is designed to monitor the asteroid remotely from a distance of about 20 kilometers. After detaching from the RAMSES craft, APOSSUM will make its way to about 1 km from Apophis’ surface. To do so, it will use two different modeling techniques - one for the shape of the asteroid, and one for its gravitational field.
Fraser discusses some of the techniques we'll use as we watch Apophis pass us by.
Apophis’ shape has been relatively well defined, at least compared to other asteroids. NASA describes it in terms of its x-y-z dimensions, with sizes of 450 m, 370 m, and 170 m in each coordinate respectively. The gravitational field, which is assumed to be uniform at a distance of 1 km, uses a technique called Spherical Harmonics, which is computationally efficient and therefore better to use when accuracy isn’t as much a concern.
However, as APOSSUM starts its second phase, that accuracy begins to matter. As it approaches in an attempt to land, the spacecraft can no longer ignore variations in the density of its target, as they start to have major impacts on how the landing process itself proceeds. At this point, the spacecraft will switch to a non-constant density model, and the authors tried several different versions with varying densities throughout. As expected, the variability in those models significantly changed the spacecraft’s trajectory when that was subsequently modeled.
That sounds like a control problem - which is exactly what the authors did next. They implemented two different control techniques - Proportional-Deriviative (PD) and Bang-Bang - watched how they played out in their simulation of a landing sequence. Bang-bang, which is equivalent to a “binary” thrust value of either on or off, had the advantage of being quicker to get to a landing point. PD control, on the other hand, fine tuned the thrust based around feedback from sensors around the spacecraft. While it is more fuel efficient, and was therefore selected as the superior methodology, it is susceptible to variations in the density distribution of its target asteroid, in some cases completely missing the mark of a landing in some of the simpler scenarios.
Fraser discusses how we would react to an incoming asteroid
If the spacecraft is able to successfully land on Apophis, it will hopefully be able to collect a sample, which, although that has proved a challenge in other asteroid return missions, the details aren’t discussed in detail in the paper. But if it does (and even if it doesn’t), the next phase of the mission would be a return to Earth, where APOSSUM launches back off the asteroid and returns to a remote part of the Australian outback. Timing is critical in this phase, as the mission designers didn’t want to interfere with telescope observations of Apophis as it passed by close to Earth, which includes the consideration that the spacecraft would want to be on the opposite side of the Earth from where Apophis will be making its closest approach.
One major question mark for the mission is the timeline - the optimal launch date for the mission is March 20, 2029 - a little less than 4 years away. Designing, testing, and launching an entire mission in under four years is a tall task. But, given the interest surrounding what will be the closest visit from an asteroid in decades, there might be enough resources devoted to studying it to pull the APOSSUM mission off.
What imaging systems can NASA’s Artemis astronauts use on the Moon to conduct groundbreaking science and efficient documentation on the lunar surface? This is what a recent study presented at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) aspired to address as a team of researchers from the University of Texas at El Paso and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory investigated using next-generation cameras on the Artemis III mission, which is slated to be the first lunar surface mission of the Artemis program.
The study notes, “Astronaut-acquired photography will provide a critical context for maximizing the scientific return from the extravehicular activities (EVAs) planned for Artemis III. Images will be used to understand the context of crew observations and samples spatially in the exploration area, temporally within the mission timeline, and thematically within the Artemis III science traceability matrix (STM).”
For the study, the researchers discussed how the Handheld Universal Lunar Camera (HULC) could successfully be used to conduct science imaging operations on the lunar surface. This includes reconnaissance being conducted by astronauts of the interior and exterior of the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) during and after landing and documenting lunar surface traverses through panoramas both between and at science stations. The team notes that the type of camera planned to be employed is the full-frame mirrorless digital camera, Nikon Z9.
The researchers emphasized the importance of real-time video streaming and downloading to enable ground crews to communicate with the astronauts and make on-the-fly decisions regarding science objectives and situational awareness. They also discussed the use of Third-Person Point-of-View (3POV) capabilities, which provides a level of redundancy for documenting crew activities and science objectives.
Regarding future work, the study notes, “We will continue to work with the teams responsible for engineering and testing the HULC, including aiding in radiometric and geometric calibration. Radiometric calibration is required for some science objectives (e.g., photometry for regolith characterization), and geometric calibration is necessary for deriving precise morphometric measurements and for photogrammetric processing.” The researchers emphasized training Artemis III astronauts regarding the importance of documentation and HULC use on the lunar surface.
The HULCs build off the Hasselblad cameras used by the 12 Apollo astronauts who walked on the lunar surface for Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. During those missions, the Hasselblad cameras were mounted to the front of the astronauts’ spacesuits and documented their journeys on the lunar surface with still photography and video.
This study comes as Artemis III is currently scheduled for mid-2027 and will consist of an approximately 30-day mission to the lunar surface using Starship HLS. This mission will mark the first time humans have stepped foot on the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in 1972. However, it is currently unknown how the recent Starship explosion at Starbase in Texas could delay Artemis III and subsequent Artemis missions. This also comes after the Trump Administration has proposed canceling the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft after Artemis III due to SLS’s estimated $4 billion per launch price tag.
Documentation during scientific expeditions, whether on Earth or in space, is of the utmost importance for improving data collection and decision making for all parties. Therefore, documentation is especially important on future lunar surface expeditions so astronauts, ground crews, engineers, and mission managers can make the best-informed decisions regarding science objectives, crew safety, and improvements on future lunar surface missions.
How will HULCs help Artemis astronauts conduct groundbreaking lunar science in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
CODEX sees an outflow of material (inset) in the solar corona. Credit: NASA/KASI/INAF/CODEX.
A new solar observing telescope on the exterior of the International Space Station is open for business. NASA recently released imagesfrom the newly commissioned Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX) mounted on the station.
We wrote about the launch of CODEX when it was on its way to the International Space Station late last year. The new results were shared at the recent American Astronomical Society meeting, held last week in Anchorage, Alaska.
CODEX was built and operated by NASA in partnership with Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics (INAE) and KASI (The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute). The small telescope includes an occluding device, meant to block out the Sun, in order to observe the deep inner solar corona. About the brightness of two Full Moons, the corona is the ghostly glow you see around the Sun briefly during a total solar eclipse. This poorly understood region is thought to be the source of space weather, a place that the solar wind originates from and is first accelerated outward from the Sun. But by its very definition, this zone has been problematic to study, until now.
The occulting disk in the instrument is about the size of an outstretched hand. The chief advantage of placing a coronagraph in space is the nice sharp edges it produces, as it eliminates light spillage due to forward scattering.
Comparisons of CODEX's field of view with SOHO's LASCO C3 imager.
Credit: NASA/ESA/SOHO/KASI/INAF/CODEX
The Science of CODEX
CODEX is the first mission to show temperature changes deep in the Sun’s atmosphere. The first results have already demonstrated that the flow within the solar corona is not homogeneous.
The multi-pass filters on CODEX are key to the instrument’s unique abilities. CODEX has four narrow-band filters—two for temperature, and two for measuring outflow speed. These allow CODEX to measure temperature changes versus the speed of moving material. This marks an improvement over just simple density readings, as was the case with early observations of the solar corona.
"We really never had the ability to do this kind of science before," says Jeffery Newmark (NASA/GSFC) in a recent press release. "The right kind of filters, the right size instrumentation--all the right things fell into place. These are brand new observations that have never been seen before, and we think there's a lot of really interesting science to be done with it."
The middle layer of the solar corona is thought to be the elusive source of the solar wind.
The source of the solar wind source links to what’s known as the coronal heating mystery mystery. Why are upper layers of the solar atmosphere hotter (by an order of a million degrees) versus the photosphere below? Some process is accelerating the solar wind to over a million kilometers per hour.
Temperature gradients seen in the solar corona over time by CODEX.
Credit: NASA/INAF/KARI/CODEX
CODEX sees the Sun about half the time, as the ISS zips around the Earth once every 90 minutes. Seasons near either solstice (such as right now, June going in to July) is what’s known as high-beta angle season for the station, allowing for near-continuous views of the Sun.
CODEX on Earth, ahead of launch.
Credit: KARI/CODEX
CODEX sees down to just 3 solar radii, versus NASA’s Parker Solar Probe at 10 solar radii. CODEX observations could also link to what ESA’s Solar Orbiter (SolO) sees with its EUV Extreme ultraviolet and white light imager, in terms of the source of the solar wind.
The mission launched on SpaceX's Cargo Dragon CRS-31 mission. Dragon arrived at the station on November 5th, and CODEX was installed by the station's Canadarm-2 on November 12th. CODEX is installed on the EXPRESS (Expedite the Processing of Experiments to the Space Station) Logistics Carrier Site 3 (ELC-3).
CODEX in action aboard the ISS.
Credit: NASA
The Rise of the Coronagraphs
Though it has some unique capabilities, CODEX isn’t the first coronagraph in space. The instrument is in good company in the solar-observing department. The joint ESA/NASA Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has been observing the Sun now for over a quarter of a century. ESA’s Proba-3 was recently commissioned as well, and is now open for business, featuring the first observatory plus free-flying occulter duo. The Compact Coronagraph (CCOR-1) onboard NOAA’s GOES-19 satellite also launched last year. Also, NASA is now getting observations back from PUNCH (the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere), which launched with SPHEREx on March 12th, 2025. The PUNCH quartet of instruments extends what CODEX sees, as it images out to six solar radii.
This armada of solar observatories guarantee that the ongoing Solar Cycle 25 will be the best one studied to date. CODEX puts us that much closer to unraveling the mysteries of our host star, The Sun.
This enhanced, colour image of Mercury reveals the planet’s complex surface geology, from the Messenger probe.
Mercury is definitely the troublemaker of our Solar System. The smallest planet orbiting our Sun is also one of the most perplexing, with characteristics so unusual that scientists are still scratching their heads about how it came to be. But new laboratory experiments are finally starting to unravel Mercury's mysteries and what they're revealing could reshape our understanding of rocky planets everywhere.
Mercury, the innermost planet of the Solar System captured by Mariner 10.
(Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS)
Unlike Earth, where the core makes up just 15% of the planet's volume, Mercury's massive metallic core accounts for a whopping 60%. It's as if someone took a planet and stripped away most of its rocky exterior. Scientists debate whether Mercury formed this way naturally from metal-rich building blocks, or whether catastrophic collisions early in its history removed its outer layers.
"Mercury is so off, it has this huge core, weird chemistry, and a magnetic field that doesn't quite add up. In a way, it's like an exoplanet in our own backyard."
Anne Pommier, Carnegie Science's Earth and Planets Laboratory.
Since it’s not possible to drill directly into Mercury's surface, the team led by Anne Pommier from the Carnegie Science Earth and Planets Laboratory has taken an ingenious approach; they're recreating Mercury's geology in their laboratory. By synthesizing artificial lavas that match the chemical composition detected by NASA's MESSENGER mission, they've discovered something remarkable about how Mercury's ancient volcanoes behaved.
Artist's impression of the MESSENGER Spacecraft
(Credit: Johns Hopkins University)
The key difference, it seems, lies in sulfur. While Earth's lava is built from silicon-oxygen bonds that form long, sticky chains (somewhat like melted plastic), Mercury's sulfur-rich lavas have much shorter, less connected structures. This fundamental atomic difference means Mercury's ancient lava flows behaved more like syrup than tar, potentially explaining why the planet has surprisingly smooth volcanic plains despite its violent history.
Perhaps even stranger is Mercury's magnetic field. For such a small, slowly cooling planet, Mercury shouldn't really have an active magnetic field at all yet, unexpectedly... it does. Through thousands of computer simulations, Pommier and her colleagues have identified a narrow range of scenarios that could explain this puzzle.
Their models suggest that Mercury maintains its magnetic dynamo by slowly growing a solid inner core while a thin layer in the outer core continues to generate the magnetic field. This convecting region is getting progressively thinner, which might explain why Mercury's magnetic field is so weak compared to Earth's.
Mercury's magnetic field
(Credit: NASA)
These laboratory insights couldn't come at a better time. In 2025, the European-Japanese BepiColombo mission will begin orbiting Mercury, carrying with it instruments designed to probe the planet's magnetic field, chemistry, and electrical conductivity in unprecedented detail. But interpreting that flood of new data will require exactly the kind of fundamental understanding that experiments like Pommier's provide.
As we discover more rocky planets around distant stars, Mercury serves as a crucial test case, close enough to study in detail, yet alien enough to challenge our assumptions about planetary formation. Understanding this strange planet might just be the key to understanding rocky worlds throughout the universe.
Imagine a star so dense that a teaspoon of its material would weigh as much as Mount Everest, spinning hundreds of times per second while beaming radio waves across the universe. These are pulsars, the collapsed cores of massive stars. Some pulsars are breaking the rules of physics as we understand them, and the answer might lie in something as simple as tiny mountains on their surfaces.
Scientists have long known that pulsars should eventually "die" when they spin down too much to generate the powerful electric fields needed to produce radio waves. This boundary, called the "death line," marks where a pulsar should fall silent forever and, well, stop pulsing! Yet a team of researchers has discovered pulsars that are very much alive despite being well below this theoretical limit.
Composite optical/X-ray image of the Crab Nebula, showing synchrotron emission in the surrounding pulsar wind nebula, powered by injection of magnetic fields and particles from the central pulsar
(Credit: NASA/HST/ASU/J)
Two particularly puzzling examples are PSR J0250+5854 and PSR J2144-3933. These pulsars should be radio quiet according to current models, yet they continue to beam signals across space. Until now, scientists couldn't explain how these "dead" pulsars were still pulsing.
New research from Peking University suggests the answer might be surprisingly simple: tiny mountains on the pulsar's surface. These aren't mountains as we know them on Earth; they’re probably no more than a centimetre tall, roughly the height of your fingernail. But on a neutron star, where gravity is 100 billion times stronger than Earth's, even such small features can have dramatic effects.
The researchers led by Zi-Hao Xu from Peking University developed sophisticated computer models to understand how these miniature mountains would affect the powerful electric fields around pulsars. They found that the steep slopes of these tiny peaks dramatically amplify the local electric field, making it much easier for the pulsar to accelerate particles and generate the cascades of electrons and positrons that create radio waves.
Schematic view of a pulsar. The sphere in the middle represents the neutron star, the curves indicate the magnetic field lines, the protruding cones represent the emission beams and the green line represents the axis on which the star rotates.
Think of it like focusing sunlight with a magnifying glass; the mountain's curved surface concentrates the electric field into a much more powerful beam. This amplification can reduce the energy threshold needed to trigger radio emission by half or more, effectively bringing "dead" pulsars back to life. They also provide clues about what neutron stars are actually made of, one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in physics. For mountains to survive on a neutron star's surface, the material must be incredibly strong. The intense bombardment of high-energy particles would quickly erode any ordinary matter.
The researchers propose that neutron stars might be made of "strangeon matter," an exotic form of matter bound together by the strong nuclear force rather than electromagnetic forces. This material would be tough enough to maintain surface features against the neutron star's extreme environment, with binding energies millions of times stronger than ordinary matter.
This research opens exciting new possibilities for understanding neutron stars and testing fundamental physics. If surface mountains are common on pulsars, astronomers should be able to detect their effects through careful observations of pulse timing and intensity patterns. The upcoming Chinese FAST telescope, for example, may be able to spot the tell-tale signatures of these tiny peaks.
The work also suggests that neutron star "glitches," sudden changes in spinning speed, might be connected to the formation or destruction of surface mountains during starquakes. This could provide a new way to study the internal structure of these exotic objects.
This image combines 678 separate images taken by NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in just over seven hours of observing time. Combining many images in this way clearly reveals otherwise faint or invisible details, such as the clouds of gas and dust that comprise the Trifid nebula (top right) and the Lagoon nebula, which are several thousand light-years away from Earth. Credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, constructed in Chile's Atacama Desert, houses perhaps the most powerful survey telescope ever built. Named after the pioneering astronomer who provided crucial evidence for dark matter, the telescope features an 8.4-meter primary mirror and the world's largest digital camera at 3.2 gigapixels. It’s plan…. to conduct the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), photographing the entire visible southern sky every few nights for ten years. This unprecedented survey will catalog billions of galaxies and stars, track moving objects throughout the Solar System, and help scientists study dark matter, dark energy, and the changing universe with remarkable precision.
Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the Milky Way
(Credit : Rubin Observatory/NSF/AURA/B)
We have been tracking the development of the telescope here at UniverseToday and we can now, finally and somewhat excitedly share details of the first images from this historic instrument. You can view them all yourself right here.
One of the images just released shows a stunning composite of the Trifid and Lagoon Nebula. The image combines 678 separate images taken in just over seven hours of observing time, revealing otherwise faint or invisible details in these wonderful examples of stellar nurseries. It shows the Trifid Nebula (positioned in the upper right) and the Lagoon Nebula (in the centre,) both located several thousand light years from Earth. They are clouds of gas and dust where new stars are born, and the extended exposure time allowed the camera to capture intricate details that would otherwise remain hidden. The image beautifully demonstrates the telescope's ability to combine multiple observations to reveal faint structures, displaying the full beauty of these distant stellar formation regions. The image clearly shows two of the main types of nebula in the universe. Emission and reflection nebulae differ in how they interact with starlight to create their distinctive colours. Red emission nebulae, such as the Lagoon Nebula in the image glow with their own light when ultraviolet radiation from hot, young stars ionizes hydrogen gas, causing it to emit the characteristic red hydrogen-alpha wavelength. Blue reflection nebulae like parts of the Trifid Nebula, however, don't produce their own light but instead scatter starlight from nearby stars, the fine dust particles preferentially scatter blue wavelengths while allowing red light to pass through.
NSF-DOE Rubin Trifid and Lagoon nebulas with insets showing M21, Bochum 14 and NGC6544
(Credit : NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory)
The second image released by the Rubin team reveals the Virgo Cluster with a fabulous level of detail. It shows a breathtaking mix of nearly 2,000 galaxies, with bright stars from our own Galaxy shining amongst them. Each of the scattered dots in the background represents a distant galaxy. Just take a moment to ponder that! The image reveals a chaotic jumble of merging galaxies (a process that plays a crucial role in the evolution of galaxies,) along with intricate details in the spiral structure of individual galaxies. Perhaps tantalisingly though, this image represents only a small section of the telescope's total field of view, yet this image still contains millions of galaxies.
The Virgo Cluster
(Credit : NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory)
These first images represent just the beginning of what promises to be a fabulous decade in astronomy. When the Vera C. Rubin Observatory begins its full Legacy Survey of Space and Time later this year, it will detect about 10 million changes every night, allowing observations to catch transient phenomena they otherwise wouldn't know to look for; from exploding stars to passing asteroids. Over its ten year mission, Rubin is expected to discover 20 billion new galaxies, providing an unprecedented census that will help solve some of the deepest mysteries in cosmology, including the nature of dark matter and dark energy that Vera Rubin herself helped discover. I can't wait!
Vera Rubin Observatory has already found thousands of new asteroids
Vera Rubin Observatory has already found thousands of new asteroids
In just 10 hours of observing the night sky, the powerful new telescope detected more than 2000 new asteroids, including a few that will pass near Earth
“These two beautiful galaxies were photobombed by asteroids,” said ´eljko Ivezić at the University of Washington in Seattle, presenting an image showing several asteroids streaking past two spiral-armed galaxies during a press briefing on 23 June.
During just 10 hours of observing the night sky, the telescope – situated in the clear air high atop a mountain in the Chilean Andes – captured 2104 previously unknown asteroids. Of these, seven are on a trajectory that would pass near Earth, though none pose a risk of hitting us, said Ivezić.
Researchers identified and tracked newly discovered asteroids in images taken over 10 hours
NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
The telescope was not primarily designed to detect near-Earth objects, but to conduct a decade-long survey expanding our view of the entire universe. But the same qualities that make it useful for that purpose are also good for asteroid detection: “You need to scan the sky very fast, with a very large field of view, for a long time,” said Ivezić.
The asteroids were identified by scanning the same region of sky and noting what was moving. In a composite image Ivezić displayed during the briefing, the asteroids appeared as coloured streaks on a background of bright objects in deeper space. This gives us a better picture of our planetary neighbourhood and its inhabitants. “They were not a surprise,” he said. “We have exquisite simulations.”
During the course of its 10-year survey, the telescope is expected to detect about 5 million new asteroids, quintupling the number identified in previous centuries of searching.
Asteroids are marked in coloured dots in front of an image of galaxies visible in the southern sky
NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Copyright: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Any new detections will be reported on a daily basis to the Minor Planet Center in the US, which will analyse their orbital trajectories and identify any objects that could pose a threat to Earth. “Within 24 hours, everyone in the world will know that there is a particular object which could be hazardous,” says Ivezić.
Matthew Payne at the Minor Planet Center says only an estimated 40 per cent or so of the near-Earth objects large enough to pose a threat have been found. The radical increase in the number of detections from the Vera Rubin Observatory will help quickly find the rest of them, he says.
The huge increase in observations of other objects in the solar system – from the main belt asteroids between Mars and Jupiter to objects further out beyond the orbit of Neptune – is also expected to give us new insight into our immediate cosmic neighborhood. “It will revolutionise, broadly, solar system science,” says Payne.
Ruimtefilm die 10 jaar duurt: Vera Rubin Telescoop geeft eerste beelden van zuidelijke sterrenhemel prijs
Ruimtefilm die 10 jaar duurt: Vera Rubin Telescoop geeft eerste beelden van zuidelijke sterrenhemel prijs
Artikel door Karla Liebrecht
De Vera Rubin-telescoop in de beschermende koepel.
NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
De Vera Rubin telescoop in Chili zal om de drie dagen beelden doorsturen van de zuidelijke sterrenhemel. "Uniek aan dit project is dat heel zwakke objecten gemeten zullen worden en dat gedurende tien jaar", zegt Conny Aerts, sterrenkundige aan de KU Leuven. "We zullen een hele mooie film kunnen maken, maar gaan er wel tien jaar geduld voor moeten hebben".
Wetenschappers zullen de komende jaren de grote hoeveelheid data analyseren en op zoek gaan naar veranderingen. "Dat kunnen sterrenstelsels zijn, maar ook brokstukken in ons eigen zonnestelsel, die kunnen bewegen en veranderen in helderheid. Uit die veranderingen kunnen wij dan een heel dynamisch proces in beeld brengen, waarmee een heel grote groep wetenschappers - elk in hun eigen specialisme - aan het werk gaat."
"Het is ook uitkijken wat het Vera Rubin project ons kan leren over het mysterie van 'donkere materie' en 'donkere energie'", zegt Aerts nog. "We weten nog niet zo goed wat donkere materie is in het heelal. We weten dat er iets van materiaal moet zijn dat we niet kunnen zien, vandaar de term 'donker'. Vera Rubin is de stichtingsmoeder van dit onderwerp. Door nu tien jaar lang beelden hiervan te nemen, hopen we dat we de bewegingen van de sterrenstelsels beter gaan begrijpen, in termen van die donkere materie.
De Vera rubin Telescoop prijkt op een berg in de Atacamawoestijn, op een hoogte van 2.700 meter. Het is de beste locatie om waarnemingen te doen. "Het is de hoogste en droogste locatie waardoor er zo weinig mogelijk negatieve invloed is van de aardatmosfeer." Ideale omstandigheden en een huzarenstukje aan technologie: de telescoop heeft een lens van ruim 8 meter doorsnede, en een camera zo groot als een suv.
Het Vera C. Rubin Observatory gaat jacht maken op onder andere kosmische explosies en langs razende planetoïden – mini-planeetjes in een baan rond de zon. Ook moet hij inzicht bieden in de ware aard van twee mysterieuze bestanddelen van het heelal: donkere materie (onzichtbaar spul waarvan het bestaan wordt afgeleid uit zwaartekrachtmetingen) en donkere energie, de aanjager van de versnellende uitdijing van de ruimte.
‘Deze nieuwe telescoop is al tientallen jaren in de planning’, zegt Koen Kuijken van de Leidse Sterrewacht. ‘Geweldig dat hij nu echt kan beginnen.’ Kuijken is verbonden aan de Europese Euclid-missie – een twee jaar geleden gelanceerde ruimtetelescoop die net als Vera Rubin onderzoek doet aan donkere materie en donkere energie.
Het Vera Rubin Observatory (genoemd naar een Amerikaanse pionier op het gebied van donkere materie) is een telescoop van superlatieven. De 8,4 meter brede spiegel is de grootste enkelvoudige telescoopspiegel ooit gemaakt. De drie ton zware digitale camera is de grootste ter wereld, met 3,2 miljard pixels.
De extreem compacte telescoop fotografeert elke dertig seconden een gebied aan de hemel dat 45 keer zo groot is als de vollemaan. Twee keer per week wordt op die manier de hele sterrenhemel boven Chili in detail vastgelegd – nacht na nacht, tien jaar lang.
Door een kleine zevenhonderd opnamen ‘bij elkaar op te tellen’ brengt de Vera Rubin-telescoop kleurrijke gaswolken in het Melkwegstelsel ongekend helder in beeld.
NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Computeralgoritmes vergelijken de verschillende foto’s van hetzelfde stuk sterrenhemel, en komen op die manier veranderingen op het spoor: ontploffende sterren in verre sterrenstelsels, bewegende hemellichamen zoals planetoïden en kometen, of sterren die onverwacht van kleur of helderheid veranderen. Al die ontdekkingen worden automatisch doorgegeven aan andere telescopen, die er vervolgens in detail onderzoek aan kunnen doen.
Daarnaast legt de Rubin-telescoop een catalogus aan van twintig miljard sterrenstelsels. Uit hun ruimtelijke verdeling – de grootste 3D-kaart van het heelal ooit gemaakt – en uit hun nauwkeurig opgemeten vormen komen sterrenkundigen meer te weten over donkere energie en over de verdeling van donkere materie in het heelal.
Tijdens een testperiode van tien uur heeft Rubin al miljoenen sterrenstelsels vastgelegd en enkele duizenden tot nu toe onbekende planetoïden opgespoord. Volgens Brian Stone van de Amerikaanse National Science Foundation zal het Vera Rubin Observatory meer informatie over het heelal verzamelen dan alle bestaande optische telescopen bij elkaar.
‘Rubin is de volgende stap in de gestage ontwikkeling van de moderne big data-sterrenkunde’, aldus Kuijken. ‘Het wordt helemaal geweldig wanneer we deze data over enkele jaren kunnen gaan combineren met beelden van ruimtetelescoop Euclid.’
Duizenden verre sterrenstelsels zijn zichtbaar op deze opname, gemaakt met de Vera Rubin-telescoop.NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Luister hieronder naar onze wetenschapspodcast Ondertussen in de kosmos. Kijk voor al onze podcasts op volkskrant.nl/podcasts.
Aangezien het om een Amerikaans project gaan, zullen wetenschappers bij ons nog even moeten wachten om te mogen werken met de beelden. Aerts kijkt alvast uit om ze ook te kunnen gebruiken in educatieve projecten en jongeren zo warm te maken voor de wetenschap.
Lateral evolution from a sharp to a transitional contact between brain coral terrain and polygonal terrain within the terraced crater
Mars, often called the Red Planet due to its distinctive rusty color from iron oxide on its surface, is Earth's neighboring planet and humanity's most likely next destination for exploration. It’s about half the size of Earth and takes nearly two years to complete one orbit around the Sun. Mars is home to the largest volcano in our solar system, Olympus Mons, as well as a massive canyon system called Valles Marineris. It continues to fascinate scientists who are searching for signs of past or present life while planning for the day humans pay a visit.
Mars, the red planet.
(Credit : Kevin Gill)
Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery that may well bring that first human exploration a little closer. Researchers led by University of Mississippi planetary geologist Erica Luzzi have found strong evidence of water ice just beneath the Martian surface, a finding that could solve one of the biggest challenges facing future Mars missions. The research team discovered indications of water ice less than one meter below the surface in Mars' Amazonis Planitia region, located in the planet's middle latitudes.
Amazonis Planitia topography map.
(Credit : Martin Pauer)
Using high-resolution satellite images from HiRISE on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet, they identified telltale signs including ice-exposing craters and polygonal terrain patterns that typically indicate near-surface ice. Amazonis Planitia region represents the "perfect compromise" for future missions, according to Luzzi. The middle latitudes receive enough sunlight to power equipment while remaining cold enough to preserve ice deposits. This makes the region an ideal candidate for humanity's first Mars landing site.
HiRISE camera of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
(Credit : NASA)
Water ice isn't just about having something to drink, though that's certainly important, but for Mars explorers, water represents a lifeline that could mean the difference between mission success and failure. It can be broken down to provide oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for rocket fuel too, eliminating the need to transport the heavy resource from Earth.
"If we're going to send humans to Mars, you need H2O and not just for drinking, but for propellant and all manner of applications," Erica Luzzi, University of Mississippi.
This concept, called in situ resource utilization, is crucial for Mars missions because of the vast distances involved. While a resupply mission to the Moon takes about a week, reaching Mars requires months of travel time. Astronauts would need to be completely self-sufficient for extended periods.
Beyond supporting human missions, the ice discovery has exciting implications for astrobiology, the search for life beyond Earth. On our planet, ice can preserve biological markers from ancient life forms and even harbor living microorganisms in extreme environments. While the satellite evidence is compelling, scientists emphasize that physical confirmation is still needed. The next phase involves radar analysis to better understand the ice deposits' depth and distribution. Eventually, robotic missions or human explorers will need to drill samples to confirm whether the formations are pure water ice or contain other materials.
This research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, represents a crucial stepping stone toward establishing a human presence on Mars. While astronauts may still be years away from setting foot on the Red Planet, scientists now have a much clearer idea of where those historic first steps should be taken.
The solar wind flows around Earth's magnetic field. A new NASA study suggests that the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere and strength of the magnetic field have been correlated for more than half a billion years. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Laboratory
Within Earth's interior, the molten material that makes up the outer core flows around the inner core in the opposite direction of the Earth's rotation. This "dynamo" is believed to be responsible for generating Earth's magnetosphere, the intrinsic magnetic field that shields life on the surface from harmful radiation. But since the flow of molten material in Earth's core isn't perfectly stable, the magnetosphere ebbs and flows over time. Scientists also theorize that this field prevents Earth's atmosphere from being slowly stripped away by charged solar particles (solar wind), which is believed to have been the case with Mars.
As a result, Earth's magnetic field is theorized to be integral to Earth's habitability, though its role in maintaining the atmosphere remains an ongoing field of study. According to new research by a team of NASA scientists, changes in Earth's magnetic field over the past 540 million years are correlated to fluctuations of oxygen levels in our atmosphere. Their research suggests that processes in Earth's interior might be directly connected to changes in our atmosphere, which could have significant implications for our understanding of planetary habitability.
The study was led by Weijia Kuang, a geophysicist at the Geodesy and Geophysics Laboratory and Sellers Exoplanet Environments Collaboration (SEEC) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. She was joined by researchers from NASA Goddard's Planetary Environments Laboratory, the Department of Earth and Space Sciences/Astrobiology Program at the University of Washington, and the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. The paper describing their findings appeared on June 13th in Science Advances.
Artist's impression of Earth's interior structure.
Credit: Science Photo Library
Earth scientists have long known that the history of Earth's magnetic field is recorded by magnetized minerals in rocks. When magma rises to the surface and solidifies, the minerals retain indications of the magnetic field it formed in and how strong it was. As long as the minerals are not heated to the point that they become molten again, this magnetic record can remain intact indefinitely. Similarly, the chemical composition of rocks and minerals is dependent on the amount of oxygen in which they formed, allowing scientists to determine how oxygen levels rose and fell over time. As Kuang said in a NASA press release:
These two datasets are very similar. Earth is the only known planet that supports complex life. The correlations we’ve found could help us to understand how life evolves and how it’s connected to the interior processes of the planet.
Geophysicists and geochemists have compiled extensive records on both magnetism and oxygen levels, as recorded in ancient rocks. But according to the authors, there have been no detailed comparisons between these records before. When Kuang and his colleagues analyzed the two datasets, they found that fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field correlated with rising and falling levels of atmospheric oxygen since the Cambrian Explosion. This event, which occurred about 540 million years ago, is when complex life and practically all major animal phyla started to appear in the fossil record. Coauthor Benjamin Mills, a biogeochemist at the University of Leeds added:
This correlation raises the possibility that both the magnetic field strength and the atmospheric oxygen level are responding to a single underlying process, such as the movement of Earth’s continents.
The research team hopes to examine more datasets to test this correlation. This will include datasets that look back farther than the Cambrian Era, as well as those that catalog changes in other atmospheric components (like nitrogen) that are essential to life. These studies could reveal a vital connection between the interior dynamics of planets and habitability, which could also have implications for the search for life beyond Earth (astrobiology).
In what seemed to be a development that came from nowhere, there’s a new entrant into the reusable launch systems competition - Honda. The giant Japanese industrial conglomerate recently launched a prototype reusable rocket up to 300m and landed it safely back on Earth. So what does that mean for the reusable launch vehicle (RLV) industry and the future of inexpensive flights to orbit?
Competition is undoubtedly a good thing, and so far other companies have struggled to make their rockets reusable, one of the most important aspects of making access to space cheap. Blue Origin has done so with the booster for its New Shepard suborbital vehicle landing on a pad near its launch complex. LandSpace, a Chinese company, has successfully demonstrated the Zhuque-3 with a test hop similar to early RLV tests. But most notably, SpaceX has, at this point, successfully launched and landed hundreds of rockets over the course of the past few years, and are the only ones that have reached orbit with an RLV.
That sounds like a market that is ripe for disruption - and Honda certainly saw it that way. Their work with rockets goes back to 2021, but their work on many of the sub-components that go into rockets goes back much further than that. According to a press release, the transition from being a component supplier to being a rocket builder was “inspired by the dream of young Honda engineers.”
Fraser discusses the Honda rocket test.
Those young engineers were probably (rightfully) thrilled when Honda’s first test launch took place on June 17th. During the test, a prototype rocket that was 6.3m tall and 85 cm in diameter, with a wet weight of 1312 kg, launched 271.4 m into the air and landed 37 cm from its nominal landing spot after a 56.6 second flight. Data was collected throughout the test to inform the next round of testing.
This step is the equivalent to the famous “Grasshopper” experiments that SpaceX completed back in 2013, where the rocket would launch, hover and return to the ground. It was a necessary step on the path to reusable rocketry, and Honda is now only the fourth company to ever complete this feat.
It has a competitive advantage over the other three companies though, in that it’s part of a much large industrial behemoth who makes everything from lawnmowers to motorcycles. Honda already employs tens of thousands of engineers, and has made some of the most reliable combustion related engines ever produced - just ask someone who owns a lawnmower with one of their engines. Compared to relative neophytes like SpaceX and Blue Origin, that industrial heft gives the company a much stronger financial footing from which to experiment.
Honda reusable rocket being prepped for launch.
Whether or not that is an advantage remains to be seen - SpaceX is famous for it’s work culture that is at least partly driven by fear of failure, which probably won’t be the case for the Honda engineers who could simply shuffle off to other parts of the organization if their rocketry experiments fail. But, given Japan’s increasing presence in the growing space industry, it was only a matter of time before a Japanese champion would join the fray of the new RLV industry. Honda is definitely one of the more capable of those potential entrants, but it remains to be seen what, if any impact their entrance will have on the industry at large. As the company moves to completion of a sub-orbital launch in 2029, more and more eyes will be turning toward it as potentially the greatest new competition in this space.
Op 17 juni 2025 lanceerde autofabrikant Honda een experimentele raket. Het voertuig bereikte niet de ruimte, maar steeg tot 271,4 meter en landde vervolgens verticaal, binnen 37 centimeter van het beoogde doel. De raket is nog lang niet te vergelijken met die van de gevestigde ruimtevaartspelers, maar de prestatie is toch opmerkelijk. Dat juist een autofabrikant dit voor elkaar krijgt, toont opnieuw hoe snel en fundamenteel de ruimtevaart aan het veranderen is.
Raketten die keer op keer kunnen worden gebruikt: twintig jaar geleden leek het nog een waanidee. Maar vandaag de dag wordt het steeds meer werkelijkheid, en het verandert de manier waarop we over ruimtevaart denken. Herbruikbare raketten beloven de kosten van ruimtereizen drastisch te verlagen, waardoor meer wetenschappelijk onderzoek, satellietlanceringen en zelfs ruimtetoerisme mogelijk worden. Maar hoe zijn we op dit punt gekomen?
De eerste stappen: NASA’s Space Shuttle Het idee van herbruikbare raketten begon eigenlijk al decennia geleden met de Space Shuttle van NASA, die van 1981 tot 2011 vloog. Dit ruimtevaartuig was een pionier: de orbiter (het deel dat astronauten en lading naar de ruimte bracht) kon meerdere keren worden gebruikt. Maar volledig herbruikbaar was het voertuig zeker niet. Bij elke lancering werd de enorme externe brandstoftank weggegooid, en de vastebrandstofboosters, die hielpen bij de start, moesten na elke vlucht uitgebreid worden gereviseerd.
Dit maakte de 135 missies van de Shuttle extreem duur: zo’n 1,5 miljard dollar per vlucht. Bovendien kende het programma twee tragische dieptepunten, de explosie van de Challenger in 1986 en de ramp met de Columbia in 2003, waarbij in totaal 14 astronauten omkwamen. Toch bewees het programma dat hergebruik technisch mogelijk was en legde het de basis voor wat later zou volgen.
De doorbraak: SpaceX en Blue Origin De echte revolutie begon in 2015, toen SpaceX, het ruimtevaartbedrijf van Elon Musk, iets ongekends deed. Een Falcon 9-raket van het bedrijf werd naar de ruimte gelanceerd en landde daarna verticaal terug op aarde, rechtop, met behulp van zijn eigen motoren, een beetje zoals een helikopter die landt. Deze verticale landing was een doorbraak: het toonde aan dat de duurste onderdelen van een raket hergebruikt konden worden zonder ingrijpende reparaties.
De Falcon 9 is weliswaar niet volledig herbruikbaar: de tweede trap wordt nog altijd afgeschreven. Maar de eerste trap, de booster, is het kostbaarst en wordt al routinematig hergebruikt. Sommige boosters hebben inmiddels meer dan twintig vluchten op hun naam. Daardoor zijn de kosten per lancering dramatisch hard gedaald, naar zo’n 60 miljoen dollar. Dat is een fractie van wat de Space Shuttle kostte. Intussen heeft SpaceX honderden vluchten uitgevoerd met de Falcon 9 en zijn zwaardere variant, de Falcon Heavy. In 2025 is meer dan de helft van alle raketlanceringen wereldwijd afkomstig van SpaceX. Het bedrijf werkt nu ook aan Starship, een volledig herbruikbare tweedelige raket die bedoeld is voor bemande ruimtereizen, onder meer naar Mars.
Hoewel SpaceX de markt domineert, was het niet het enige bedrijf dat in 2015 een mijlpaal bereikte. Ook Blue Origin, het ruimtevaartbedrijf van Jeff Bezos, liet toen een raket verticaal landen: de New Shepard. Deze eentrapsraket is bedoeld voor suborbitale vluchten (korte sprongen naar de rand van de ruimte) en richt zich vooral op ruimtetoerisme en wetenschappelijke experimenten. New Shepard heeft inmiddels meer dan dertig succesvolle vluchten uitgevoerd. De opvolger, New Glenn, is een veel grotere tweetrapsraket voor orbitale vluchten. Die beleefde begin 2025 zijn eerste (deels succesvolle) vlucht: de lading werd weliswaar afgeleverd in een baan rond de aarde, maar de herbruikbare eerste trap ging verloren toen het contact werd verbroken tijdens de terugkeer.
Wereldwijde race: China en onverwachte spelers Het succes van SpaceX en Blue Origin inspireerde anderen om mee te doen aan de race. In de VS werken bedrijven als Rocket Lab en Relativity Space aan concurrenten van de Falcon 9. In China werkt de staatsorganisatie China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) aan de Long March 9, een volledig herbruikbare raket die lijkt op wat SpaceX probeert te bereiken met Starship. Ook privébedrijven zoals LandSpace en CAS Space boeken vooruitgang. Zij voerden al succesvolle ‘hop-tests’ uit: korte verticale sprongen om te testen of een rakettrap veilig kan landen. Het gaat hier nog niet om volledige suborbitale vluchten.
De nieuwste naam op de lijst is nu Honda. De Japanse autofabrikant voltooide dinsdag een succesvolle hop-test en wil tegen 2029 suborbitale vluchten aanbieden. Daarbij maakt het bedrijf gebruik van technologieën uit de autobouw, zoals autonome besturingssystemen, om veilige landingen mogelijk te maken.
Ook in Europa proberen we bij te benen. ArianeGroup werkt via dochterbedrijf MaiaSpace aan een deels herbruikbare raket, waarvan de eerste testvlucht gepland staat voor 2026. Tegelijk investeren het Europese ruimteagentschap ESA en partners in testprojecten zoals Themis en CALLISTO, die herbruikbare rakettrappen demonstreren. De eerste hop-tests staan gepland voor dit of volgend jaar. Daarnaast zijn er Europese startups actief: het Spaanse PLD Space test een raket die via parachutes wordt teruggehaald, terwijl het Duitse Isar Aerospace werkt aan Spectrum, een kleinere raket voor commerciële satellietlanceringen.
De toekomst: Starship en de realiteit En dan is er Starship van SpaceX, misschien wel het meest ambitieuze ruimtevaartuig ooit. Dit gevaarte is ontworpen om mensen naar Mars te brengen en orbitale vluchten uit te voeren, volledig rond de aarde en verder. Beide rakettrappen moeten volledig herbruikbaar zijn.
Maar de weg ernaartoe is hobbelig. Op 27 mei 2025 explodeerde Starship tijdens zijn negende testvlucht bij terugkeer in de atmosfeer, door een lek in het brandstofsysteem. Ook prototypes zeven en acht gingen verloren, al slaagde SpaceX er toen nog in de herbruikbare booster, de Super Heavy Booster, veilig te landen. Toegegeven: tijdens vlucht negen was het niet de bedoeling om de booster te laten landen. Het was vooral een test: het was de tweede vlucht van eenzelfde booster. De booster moest tijdens vlucht negen in de oceaan landen, maar explodeerde in de lucht toen die terug naar de aarde afdaalde.
Nog dramatischer was de gebeurtenis van woensdagavond: Starship nummer 36, die gebruikt zou worden voor de tiende testvlucht, explodeerde in een vuurbal op het lanceerplatform in Texas, rond 23.00 uur lokale tijd, tijdens een test op de grond. SpaceX bevestigde dat er geen gewonden vielen en dat er geen gevaar was voor de omgeving, maar riep mensen wel op het gebied te vermijden.
Toch geeft SpaceX niet op. Het bedrijf volgt een strategie van snelle iteratie: elke mislukking is een leermoment. Die aanpak houdt de droom van het bedrijf levend. Maar intussen kijkt de hele wereld mee en leren andere ruimtevaartspelers veel uit elke explosie. En dat zorgt ervoor dat de voorsprong van SpaceX steeds moeilijker te behouden is.
"The dark smudge formed as the vehicle excavated and redistributed shallow regolith."
The ispace Resilience lunar lander crash on June 5, 2025 created a dark smudge surrounded by a subtle bright halo, as imaged here by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
(Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.)
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has imaged the crash site of Resilience, a moon lander built and operated by the Tokyo-based company ispace.
Resilience tried to touch down on June 5 in the center of Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold), a volcanic region interspersed with large-scale faults known as wrinkle ridges.
Mare Frigoris formed over 3.5 billion years ago as massive basalt eruptions flooded low-lying terrain, according to Mark Robinson, a lunar scientist for the company Intuitive Machines who is based in Phoenix, Arizona. Later, the wrinkle ridges formed as the crust buckled under the weight of the heavy basalt deposits.
Lost on landing
Shortly after Resilience's landing sequence, the ispace Mission Control Center was unable to establish communications with the spacecraft. The team determined that Resilience had likely been lost, a conclusion that was firmed up a few hours later.
Also lost on landing was the Tenacious microrover, a small wheeled vehicle developed in Luxembourg by ispace's European subsidiary. Tenacious carried a piece of artwork on its front bumper — Mikael Genberg's "Moonhouse," a small replica of the red-and-white homes famous in Sweden.
Ryo Ujiie, Chief Technical Officer of ispace, holds a model of the Resilience moon lander while discussing its final approach to the moon during a failed lunar landing on June 5, 2025. (Image credit: ispace)
Resilience left some telltale marks when it slammed into the moon on June 5, and LRO noticed them.
"The dark smudge formed as the vehicle excavated and redistributed shallow regolith (soil); the faint bright halo resulted from low-angle regolith particles scouring the delicate surface," Robinson, the principal investigator for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, told Inside Outer Space.
The crash spot is roughly 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from the landing site that ispace mapped out, to one decimal place, on its webpage. One decimal place in lunar latitude and longitude equals 19 miles (30 km), Robinson said.
Resilience was ispace's second moon lander. The company's first such probe also crashed during its touchdown try, in April 2023.
Scott Manley has more details on the Resilience crash; check out his video here.
Mars isn't a bright, fire-engine red, but the iron oxide in its rocks makes it appear redder than other planets, especially from afar.
Siccar Point, photographed by the Curiosity rover, is near Mars' Gale Crater.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS; Processing & License: Kevin M. Gill)
Is Mars really as red as people say it is? – Jasmine, age 14, Everson, Washington
People from cultures across the world have been looking atMars since ancient times. Because it appears reddish, it has often been called the red planet.
The English name for the planet comes from the Romans, who named it after their god of war because its color reminded them of blood. In reality, the reddish color of Mars comes from iron oxide in the rocks and dust covering its surface.
Your blood is also red because of a mixture of iron and oxygen in a molecule called hemoglobin. So in a way, the ancient connection between the planet Mars and blood wasn't completely wrong. Rust, which is a common form of iron oxide found here on Earth, also often has a reddish color.
In my current research on exoplanets, I observe different types of signals from planets beyond Earth. Lots of interesting physics goes into how researchers perceive the colors of planets and stars through different types of telescopes.
Observing Mars with probes
If you look closely at pictures of Mars taken by rovers on its surface, you can see that most of the planet isn't purely red, but more of a rusty brown or tan color.
You can see Mars' rusty color in this photo taken by the Viking lander. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)
Probes sent from Earth have taken pictures showing rocks with a rusty color. A 1976 picture from the Viking lander, the very first spacecraft to land on Mars, shows the Martian ground covered with a layer of rusty orange dust.
Not all of Mars' surface has the same color. At the poles, its ice caps appear white. These ice caps contain frozen water, like the ice we usually find on Earth, but these ice caps are also covered by a layer of frozen carbon dioxide — dry ice.
This layer of dry ice can evaporate very quickly when sunlight shines on it and grows back again when it becomes dark. This process causes the white ice caps to grow and shrink in size depending on the Martian seasons.
This picture from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the planet with the same rusty color covering large parts of its surface.(Image credit: NASA, ESA, Zolt G. Levay (STScI))
Beyond visible light
Mars also gives off light in colors that you can't see with your eyes but that scientists can measure with special cameras on telescopes.
Light itself can be thought of not only as a wave but also as a stream of particles called photons. The amount of energy carried by each photon is related to its color. For example, blue and violet photons have more energy than orange and red photons.
Ultraviolet photons have even more energy than the photons you can see with your eyes. These photons are found in direct sunlight, and because they have so much energy, they can damage the cells in your body. You can use sunscreen to protect yourself from them.
Infrared photons have less energy than the photons you can see with your eyes, and you don't need any special protection from them. This is how some types of night-vision goggles work: They can see light in the infrared spectrum as well as the visible color spectrum. Scientists can take pictures of Mars in the infrared spectrum using special cameras that work almost like night-vision goggles for telescopes.
The colors on the infrared picture aren't really what the infrared light looks like, because you can't see those colors with your eyes. They are called "false colors," and researchers add them to look at the picture more easily.
A UV view of Mars with the MAVEN spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA/LASP/CU Boulder)
When you compare the visible color picture and the infrared picture, you can see some of the same features — and the ice caps are visible in both sets of colors.
NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, launched in 2013, has even taken pictures with ultraviolet light, giving scientists a different view of both the surface of Mars and its atmosphere.
Astronomers are always looking for new ways to take telescope pictures outside of the regular visible spectrum. They can even make images using radio waves, microwaves, X-rays and gamma rays. Each part of the spectrum they can use to look at an object in space represents new information they can learn from.
Even though people have been looking at Mars since ancient times, we still have much to learn about this fascinating neighbor.
An artist rendition of comet C/2014 UN271, the largest known comet in the Oort Cloud. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/M.Weiss
A team of astronomers has recently completed a long-range observation of a comet far from the Sun. This analysis proves that there’s lots going on, even in the icy depths of the solar system.
The targeted comet is C/2014 UN271 Bernardinelli-Bernstein. Comet UN271 is one of the largest Oort Cloud comets ever observed, measuring 140 kilometers across. It's currently at a distance of 16.5 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun, which makes it tough to observe with all but the largest telescopes. Astronomers have used the powerful Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to observe the comet, watching as jets of carbon monoxide gas are erupting from its nucleus. This is a surprising level of activity for a comet that's so far from the Sun.
ALMA telescopes on the Chajnantor Plateau.
Credit: ALMA/NSF/ESO
Comet UN271 was discovered in 2014 by astronomers Gary Bernstein and Pedro Bernardinelli. They noticed the faint fuzzball in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey, moving slowly as a +22nd magnitude smudge through the constellation Sculptor.
A Far Ranging Orbit
Almost immediately, astronomers knew Comet UN271 was something special, as its slow motion through the sky suggested it was far out in the solar system, and therefore quite large. After following the comet for a bit, astronomers realized it was 29 AU from the Sun at the time of discovery—about ¾ of the way to Pluto from the Sun—and had a nucleus about 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. For context, Halley’s Comet has a nucleus just 15 kilometers across. This puts Comet UN271 up there in terms of size, as the largest Oort Cloud comet seen to date.
The discovery image for Comet UN271 (annotated).
Credit: NOIRLab.
We’re fortunate to see Comet UN271 on its perihelion approach. In January 2031, the comet will pass 10.9 AU from the Sun, just outside the orbit of Saturn. On a 2.8-million-year orbit inbound, the comet will then head out of the solar system on a 4.6-million-year orbit outbound, for a far-off aphelion 55,000 AU from the Sun. That’s 87% of a light-year away, about a fifth of the way to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star.
The orbit of Comet UN271 through the solar system.
Credit: NASA/JPL Horizons.
The difference in orbit inbound versus outbound for the comet is due to its interaction with solar system planets while it's near the Sun. Any new comet entering the inner solar system stands about a 40% chance of having its orbit altered. Likely, Comet UN271 was knocked off its Oort Cloud perch by a stellar pass near the solar system that sent sunward, long ago.
Looking at a cold distant object like Comet UN271 really pushed the sensitivity and resolution of ALMA to its limits. The thermal signal received by ALMA will not only help to refine the comet’s size, but also help to chronicle the dust production rate seen.
"These measurements give us a look at how this enormous, icy world works," says Nathan Roth (NASA/GSFC) in a recent press release. "We're seeing explosive outgassing patterns that raise new questions about how this comet will evolve as it continues its journey towards the inner solar system."
False color images of Comet UN271, showing activity.
Credit: ALMA/NSF/ESO.
Not only was this a record-setting detection in terms of distance, but it also demonstrates that comets can still display activity, far from the Sun.
No missions are planned to give us a view of Comet UN271 up close. The European Space Agency does have a mission named Comet Interceptor in the works that would loiter in the inner solar system, ready to chase down the next big comet. Comet Interceptor is planned for launch in 2029.
The Hubble Space Telescope imaged Comet UN271 in January 2022. We should get good views of the comet from the James Webb Space Telescope leading up to perihelion if it's ever tasked to observe it. The Vera Rubin Observatory, which is set to reveal its very first images next week could provide amazing views of the comet as well in the years to come.
Hubble's view of Comet UN271 in 2022.
Credit: NASA/HST/STScI
And yes, a comet the size of UN271 would spell a bad day for Earth, though in this case, it isn’t coming anywhere near the inner solar system. UN271 is 12 times the size of the Chicxulub impactor (which was only about 10 kilometers across) that struck the Earth 66 million years ago, so it would definitely be an extinction-level event if something the size of UN271 ever came our way.
A size comparison for other known comets, versus UN271.
Credit: NASA/ESA/Zena Levy/STScI
Too bad Comet UN271 won’t visit the inner solar system... (just not too close!) It’s bigger than Hale-Bopp, and would provide an amazing show. For now, we’ll have to wait for the next Oort Cloud interloper to turn up. Still, the appearance of Comet UN271 shows us just what might be lurking out there, in the remote realms of the outer solar system.
Artist's impression of Planet Nine as an ice giant eclipsing the central Milky Way, with a star-like Sun in the distance. Neptune's orbit is shown as a small ellipse around the Sun. (Credit : Nagual Design)
For years, astronomers have been searching for a mysterious ninth planet lurking in the dark outer reaches of our Solar System. Now, a team of researchers have taken a completely different approach to this cosmic detective story, instead of looking for reflected sunlight, they're hunting for the planet's own heat signature.
The story begins with a puzzle in the outer Solar System. Scientists noticed that small icy bodies called Kuiper Belt Objects, which orbit far beyond Neptune, seem to be clustered together in unusual ways. Their orbits are aligned in patterns that shouldn't exist by chance alone. The leading and most tantalising explanation…. a massive, undiscovered planet (dubbed "Planet Nine”) is gravitationally shepherding these distant objects into their strange orbits.
Known objects in the Kuiper belt beyond the orbit of Neptune. Scale in Astronomical Units. Sun at centre, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune depicted as J, S, U and N
(Credit : Minor Planet Center)
If it exists, Planet Nine would be a true giant, roughly 5-10 times the mass of Earth, orbiting somewhere between 400-800 times farther from the Sun than our planet does. At such an enormous distance, it would be incredibly faint and nearly impossible to spot with traditional telescope searches that rely on detecting reflected sunlight.
This is where the new research gets ingenious. Led by Amos Chen from the National Tsing Hua University, the team realised that searching for Planet Nine's heat signature could be far more effective than looking for its reflected light. Here's why: when you double the distance from the Sun, reflected light becomes 16 times fainter (following what scientists call an inverse fourth-power relationship). But thermal radiation, the heat that all objects naturally emit, only becomes 4 times fainter when you double the distance.
Thermal image of Jupiter from JWST
(Credit : NASA/ESA)
The researchers turned to data from AKARI, a Japanese space telescope that conducted the most sensitive all-sky survey in far infrared light, the perfect wavelength range to detect the heat signature of a cold, distant planet. Unlike ground based telescopes that are hampered by Earth's atmosphere, AKARI could detect the faint thermal glow that Planet Nine should emit.
The team focused their search on a specific region of sky where computer simulations suggested Planet Nine was most likely to be found, based upon the orbital patterns of the Kuiper Belt Objects. They then faced the challenging task of distinguishing a slowly moving planet from the countless stars, galaxies, and cosmic debris that populate this region.
They had a rather elegant solution however, Planet Nine should appear stationary over the course of a single day but show detectable movement over months. By comparing AKARI observations taken at different times, they could identify objects with this specific type of motion while filtering out cosmic rays, background galaxies, and other false signals.
Illustration of JAXA's infrared astronomy satellite ASTRO-F "AKARI"
(Credit : JAXA)
After this meticulous analysis, the researchers identified two candidates. Both objects appear in the predicted location and emit the amount of infrared light that theory suggests Planet Nine should produce. While this doesn't constitute definitive proof, it represents the most promising lead in the search for our Solar System's hidden giant.
These discoveries mark an important milestone, but the journey isn't over. The candidates require follow up observations with more powerful telescopes to confirm whether they're truly moving in ways consistent with Planet Nine, or whether they're imposters, perhaps background galaxies or other astronomical objects.
If confirmed, the discovery of Planet Nine would revolutionise our understanding of how our Solar System formed and evolved. It would also demonstrate the power of thinking creatively about astronomical searches, sometimes the best way to find something isn't to look directly at it, but to feel its warmth instead!
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
